Learning Goals:

  1. Explain why Islam in particular poses different cultural threats to different segments of the native population
  2. Describe the political implications of the “double opposition” that Muslims face

Establishing the Problem

It seems almost self-evident that Muslims face an especially heavy burden of prejudice in European societies.

Recall Koopmans and Veit’s results from last week:

Questions:

  1. Why is evidence of prejudice and discrimination against immigrants from Muslim-majority countries not necessarily the same as specifically anti-Muslim prejudice?
    • Hint: think back to our discussion of compound treatments
  2. What do Adida et al. do in order to establish causal evidence of Islamaphobia?

A Double Opposition

According to Helbling and Traunmüller, modern societies hold values that emphasize individual freedom, gender equality and political secularism.

  1. What does this have to do with Islamaphobia?
  2. What do H+T mean when they say that Muslims face a double opposition in Western societies?
H+T Survey Experiment:


Results 1


  • Muslim immigrants are not necessarily resented more than Christian immigrants. It depends on their religious behavior.
Results 2


  • Regardless of ethnic background or nominal faith, religious radicals are clearly disliked
  • BUT, Muslim radicals are the most disliked group
Results 3


  • Compared to conservatives, liberals are more favorable towards immigrants and Muslims
  • But they really dislike radicals
Results 4


  • Controlling for religious practice, liberals don’t discriminate based on either ethnic origin or nominal faith.
  • In other words, liberals only care about religiosity.
Results 5


  • Conservatives clearly prefer religious Christians to religious Muslims

Political Consequences

We have seen that conservatives dislike (religious) Muslims because they are Muslims. However, liberals do not dislike Muslims per se. Rather they dislike the radical elements of (Muslim) religious practice.

This difference has political implications.

In particular, for a majority to support religious accommodation, liberals must balance (1) their commitment to values of gender equality, free speech, etc. against (2) respect for minority rights.

Public Rally Experiment:

Prompt: Should Muslims be allowed to hold a public event to ______

  • explain Islamic values
  • preach Islamic values
  • explain conservative ideas about women
  • preach conservative ideas about women



Why this is important (I+S pp.10-11):

Against a background of the far right gaining electoral ground and amassing political influence by targeting Islam and Muslim minorities as an existential threat, there is a natural concern that efforts to promote inclusion may fan the fires already burning. Hence the importance of identifying which political options are most likely to win broad support for inclusion, and which are most likely to set back inclusion.

A polarization trap…[exists] when majorities in favor of inclusion exist, but they are misunderstood as majorities in favor of exclusion because political actors have not recognized that support for inclusion is conditional on the particular terms on which it is proposed.

A case study:


Split into groups:

Imagine that your local newspaper has just published an editorial that makes some very negative statements about Muslim immigrants.

This editorial has caused a huge controversy within the local Muslim community, and community leaders have demanded that the editorial be retracted, and that the newspaper issue a public apology.

Questions:

  1. How would you feel as a citizen of this town? Did the editor do the right thing in publishing the editorial?
  2. What are the value conflicts involved in this controversy?
  3. Imagine yourself in the shoes of a far-right politician. How would you frame this issue “fan the fires already burning”?

Now imagine yourself in the shoes of a left-wing politician.

Your political advisor tells you about a new survey, which asked respondents their opinions about what newspaper editors should publish, vs. what editors should be allowed to publish.

In particular, the survey asked

v1: Should newspaper editors publish an letter that _____

v2: Should newspaper editors be allowed to publish an letter that _____

  • is critical of Muslims
  • makes unreasonable claims about Muslims
  • makes inaccurate claims about Muslims

Here are the results:

   

  1. Given this public opinion data, what would you say to Muslim communities in your area? To your broader constituency?